UFO Capture settings

[arp]

Hi,

During last year I used the following recommended 'sensitivity settings for high S/N ratio camera', as discussed in the UFO Capture Night Sky Guide

sonotaco.com/soft/NSOG/level.html

DLratio 110

MinDL 10

MinL-N 5

Detect Size 5


From Jan 6 these are now set to the 'high sensitivity' values of 105, 5, 2, 2, respectively.

Initial results show that more cosmic ray hits and electrical noise are captured (as expected), but the positive effect is that fainter meteors are being detected.

Previously my system was capturing relatively few 1st mag meteors. The new settings are recording events about 0.5 mag fainter.

Time will tell what effect this has on 2-station work with stewartw.

Clear skies,

Alex.

[stewartw]

Hi Alex,

Will have a look at my system and see if I can give the sensitivity a nudge as well.

Best regards

William

[arp]

Hi,

I should explain to anyone who doesn't know our systems - the above settings are within the meteor capture software (UFO Capture), not the low-light cameras.

Whilst monitoring the PC screen I could see 1st mag meteors crossing the camera's field of view, but they were not activating the software's detection threshhold, and so weren't being recorded.

The new settings look to have improved the detection rates.

Alex.

[BillW]

Hi,

I'd be interested to hear how things go. When I started using the 902 a couple of year back I found the non meteor hits excessive with the high sensitivity settings. Lots of cosmic rays (which is actually interesting in it's own right, for those minded so leaving the camera running with the lens cap on could, in theory, be used to monitor solar activity but that's another story)

I have been using a middling set of parameters, these being 108, 8, 3, 3 which seem to work quite well. I still get a lot of cosmic rays but not so many spurious triggers caused by noise.

cheers,
Bill.

[arp]

Hi Bill,

Yes, I am picking up quite a few more cosmic ray hits and electrical noise. After analysing this month's captures I should be able to report whether any fainter meteors have been captured.

It does take more work to clean up the duff captures, and they soak up more disk space.

Setting the sensitivity values is a bit trial and error, a case of striking a happy medium - as the clairvoyant was wont to say!

More later,

Alex.

[arp]

Hi,

The new Sensitivity Settings (as discussed above) have had an effect. During Jul-Dec last year I only captured 3 meteors fainter than mag 1.5; January's haul was 4 in that range.

I get more cosmic ray hits and electrical noise - that's the trade off with the new settings. It takes a while to clean up the extra, unwanted captures, but it will be worth it if the resultant data are good quality.

A first look at January's multi-station captures (with stewartw) reveals a couple of mag 1.3 sporadics, which we might have missed with the previous settings.

Alex.